Where We Go
by shadesofstory
Summary: Jane and Maura figure out how to deal with the aftermath of the abduction. There'll be shoes, fear, love, beer and the things in between. AU (eventually) and rizzles (probably). Rated T for now.
1. The Heavy Bag

**Hi all! Here's the first chapter of something that's still coming. It's not really au (yet) or rizzles (yet to be determined), but it was time to get back to writing. Hope you all enjoy! Comments of all shapes and sizes are always appreciated :)**

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The musty smell of the boxing gym permeated the air to the point that Jane's eyes watered slightly as she landed another solid blow to the old heavy bag swaying lazily in front of her.

She was glad her eyes were watering. It made it easier for her to deny that tears had mingled in and were now streaming down her cheeks along with the sweat that already glistened across her face and chest. She jabbed at the bag and followed with a powerful left uppercut. Her dark eyes were trained straight ahead, her jaw set in grim determination. No one else came to the basement BPD gym at 4:30 in the morning. Even if they had tried, Jane locked the door as soon as she got there. She didn't come often in the night. But when she did, she always came to the heavy bag. And she always came alone.

The last time she had showed up, her hands already wrapped and the door locked behind her, she had just left an accident scene on a warm night on a busy highway. The lights had flashed behind her eyes then, leaving shadows of reds and blues hovering in her vision every time she blinked. Even hours later, she still heard the ghost of sirens in the silence. She had not cried, in the hours still too early to really be called morning. She had not cried, but she had punched the bag until her wrists ached and her fingers were swollen and bruised. She had not begged or bargained or even prayed. But she had kept punching until her knuckles bled.

Because she had seen death before. She had seen it intimately, up close, in all its stages of decay. She had smelled it and investigated it and even, at times, wrestled with it herself.

"It's what we've been trained to do," she breathed, her voice a low rasp against the steady hum of the one old florescent light, flickering half-heartedly above the boxing ring in the middle of the room.

The detective's shoulders ached, and she shrugged a few times, trying to loosen her already knotted muscles. It didn't work. She punched the bag again, this time hitting it so hard she saw the dust particles explode around her hand as it made contact with the old material.

 _Maura is dead._

 _That's the what she had been thinking as she sat her desk more than a full 24 hours earlier, staring at an action figure. Her mother had brought her a sandwich, and Jane had looked up and thought it again- Maura is dead. But she didn't say that out loud. She said thank you for the food. She said they would find Maura. But she didn't say she was already dead. That was a truth that was going to have to haunt her alone until they found the body, found the proof that matched all of the medical examiner's peer reviewed statistics. 75% of victims who are abducted are murdered within 3 hours._

 _A small voice in the back of Jane's head reminded her that Maura had not been in the majority 75% of anything in her life. First in her class in medical school. First woman promoted to chief medical examiner before she was 35._

 _Jane forced her eyes away from the action figure and picked up a stack of case files. She couldn't keep sitting there, staring at the chair that didn't used to be empty. So she allowed her feet to carry her automatically to Maura's office. She almost let her guard down as she walked in, almost let herself give in to the panic and fear that thrashed against the dam constructed in her chest. The doctor's desk was immaculate, as usual. Everything looked as if she had just stepped out. As if she would be right back. Jane sunk down onto the couch and closed her eyes, just for a moment, letting the scent of Maura's perfume and the familiar comfort of the warm office wash over her._

 _After 24 hours, 91% of kidnap victims had been murdered._

 _But still, still Maura had beaten odds steeper than that before. She was the child of a mobster, and she was an M.D. She was a genius, literally, who even after years of friendship with the Rizzolis had a hard time picking up on sarcasm. And, the voice insisted, maybe most unlikely of all, Dr. Maura Isles had walked into Jane's life, wearing her too-high heels and her too-expensive dresses, without any resistance. It wasn't that Jane took her walls down for Maura- it was that, for some inexplicable reason, they had never been there for her at all. They had barely even been friends when Jane showed up at the doctor's house in the middle of the night and admitted she was as afraid as she had ever been in her life. She thought it was afraid as she ever could be._

 _But, as Jane opened the first file in the stack and settled in to read it, she realized she had been wrong. There were a million words to describe her fear now, but there was only one that mattered. More. She was more afraid now. She was more afraid than she knew she was capable of. She was more afraid than she was alive._

 _The words blurred slightly on the page, and she shook her head to clear the drowsiness from her mind._

Jane landed another solid punch, and the jolt shook her from the memory.

She hadn't cried the last time she had been there, and she hadn't prayed. She blinked the sweat out of her eyes, and when she opened them again the room swayed before it steadied. She had gone too long without sleeping. Her legs shook as she bent down to pick her towel, and she knew that no matter what nightmares were waiting for her in the dark, the time was coming when she was going to have to face them.

 _"Jane, go home."_

 _She looked at the older detective. His tie was loosened, the top button of his shirt undone. She knew he was almost as tired as she was, but she would make him fight this one out because she could not go home. Not yet._

 _"I'm just going to stay here until they release her. The doctor said it would only be overnight, and then I can drive her home."_

 _Korsak sighed. "You look awful."_

 _"Gee, thanks."_

 _"You need to sleep, Jane. It's been almost 48 hours."_

 _The two detectives were standing in the hallway of the hospital, their usual good humor strained with exhaustion and fear. But it was the relief that kept them standing. That kept them arguing without even a trace of malice._

 _Jane looked through the window into the hospital room._

 _Not dead, she repeated to herself for what felt like the ten thousandth time since they had found Maura. She is not dead._

 _Jane nodded wearily. "I know. And I will. But I can't- I can't leave her, Korsak. Not yet."_

If it hadn't been for her ma and Frankie choosing that moment to barge into the hallway, he probably would have let her stay. But with the three of them working together, Korsak's request had turned into an order. She had been told to leave for two hours, minimum. Maura would be sleeping the whole time anyway, they insisted.

And so she found herself in the basement of BPD, once again facing the heavy bag. The station was closer to the hospital than Frankie's, and she had intended to take a quick nap on Maura's office couch before heading back, but she had felt the pull of the empty gym, and she had followed it.

Jane stood next to the swaying bag, towel draped across her shoulders. Her mind was too tired to focus, too tired to process more than the feel of sweat sliding down her back and the burn of acid in her muscles.

"Frost," she whispered, and it surprised her the name had been spoken out loud.

"I asked you once to find me," she continued, her voice low and rough with exhaustion. "That crazy baker guy kidnapped me and decided I was his wife, remember? And I knew you could find me. I knew you could see me and that you would be listening."

Jane sat down on the edge of the boxing ring, kneading her fingers back and forth across the scars on her hands. She looked up, blinking against more tears, her voice dropping impossibly lower, like sandpaper and velvet. "I don't know if you can see me now, or if you can see Mau-" her voice broke, and she swallowed against the heat rising in the back of her throat. "If you can see Maura. I don't know if you can hear me, Frost. But I know you always had my back. And if you had anything to do with today... with us finding her alive..." She paused again, shaking her head. "I think I'm just trying to say thank you. And you better be saving me a spot up there, alright? Let's just try and make sure you're the only one keeping watch... just for a while longer."

The detective looked back down at her scarred hands. When she spoke again, it was in a whisper. "I miss you."

The quiet after Jane fell silent seemed louder than before. She sat there on the side of the ring for a moment more and then, slowly, gathered her towel and bag and walked stiffly to the door. It was 5:30. She had been away from the hospital for sixty minutes and she had felt each of them, like a physical reminder of what she had almost lost that day. Korsak had said two hours, but one was enough. One was enough when at some point one more hour will be the last hour.

She turned back and looked at the empty gym, the heavy bag once again unmoving on its chains. And then she walked out the door and into the dawn.


	2. What If We Were 17

**Thank you all so much for the comments and follows and favorites! You're all much more validating than my law school professors, which is probably partly why finishing this chapter preempted homework efforts tonight. More coming soon. Happy reading :)**

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As soon as Maura stirred, waking up in the still early hours of the morning, Jane tried to force some of the concern to drain from her expression before the doctor saw her. She already looked tired- too tired to hide it from her overly observant best friend even if she had tried. But she didn't have to add to the effect by looking traumatized, too, so she hitched on the closest thing to a smile she could muster.

Maura opened her eyes, and for a heartbeat they widened with confusion and panic. But just for a heartbeat. And then they found Jane's. The detective watched as the fear melted away, and she felt the dam in her chest holding back her own fear crack, threatening to crumble. Maura had been kidnapped, drugged and handcuffed and dragged away, just for being friends with her. She was putting her in danger just by sitting next to her. By holding her hand. And still, the green eyes staring into her own dark ones held only relief and love and, most unbearable of all, the sincere belief that Jane could keep her safe. That she could keep her whole.

"Hi," Jane said, swallowing her thoughts down and squeezing the doctor's hand slightly. "How you feeling?"

Maura squinted at her, the concern in her eyes growing as she took in the details of Jane's appearance. The unrulier than usual hair. The dark circles hovering under her eyes. But she answered the question. "Moderate myalgia, most likely from being in the same position for an extended period of time." The doctor smiled slightly. "Glad I got out of there. And glad to see you."

Jane chuckled, the sound escaping from her throat with a rasp. "God, Maura. I have never been more glad to see anyone in my life." The full smile that lit up her best friend's face distracted Jane enough that for a second she stopped focusing on the bruising around Maura's mouth.

Maura moved her free hand to her hair, running her fingers across the ragged ends. "Although I do think I would be even more glad if my hair had made it out with me."

Jane raised her eyebrows. "Oh yeah? I don't know. I think the switchblade salon look kind of suits you."

"Does it make me look dangerous?"

The detective snorted. "Yes. Dangerous is really the word that comes to mind to describe you."

Maura laughed. "Do I look like a badass?"

A memory of the last time Maura had asked that question surfaced in Jane's mind unbidden, the doctor holding Jane's gun, offering to keep watch while she slept. She smiled, fighting the heat rising in the back of her throat. "Yeah, Maura. You look like a badass."

"And you look like you haven't slept in days," Maura must have heard the tone change in Jane's voice because hers softened in return.

"Yeah, well," Jane said, letting go of Maura's hand and roughly dragging her fingers through her ratted hair. "I've been a little busy."

"You need to sleep."

"I know." Jane looked up, unable to stop herself from once again lingering on the familiar features of her friend's face. The flecks of gold in her green eyes. The place on her cheek that Jane knew melted into a dimple when she smiled. Details that she almost lost forever. "But let's get you home first, okay? And then I'll sleep. I promise."

But she didn't sleep. She walked Maura into the house, where Angela was waiting with tea and way too many hugs, and then, after turning down Maura's offer to sleep in the guest room for a few hours, after making sure the house was secure and the uniforms on duty were paying attention outside in the squad car, she left.

She drove back to work. Because she couldn't stay there with the two people she loved most in the world, not then, not when there was still a monster waiting that somewhere deep in her bones she knew she wouldn't be good enough to catch. But she knew she had to try.

So, instead of watching movies with her ma and Maura, instead of drinking beer and ordering pizza and being relieved with everyone else, she did paperwork. They had no leads on the case since she had shot the only guy that knew anything. By noon, her eyes burned every time she blinked. The edges of her vision softened and her fingertips felt numb as she sifted through page after page of increasingly meaningless information. The only thing that kept her awake was the text she got every ten minutes from the cops in the patrol car outside Maura's house. Still safe. She had been reading and re-reading the same paragraph for over an hour when her cell vibrated, this time with a call. She looked at the clock. It was 6pm. She answered the phone.

"Hey, Maura," she said, her voice strained from lack of use. "Everything okay?"

"Korsak just called me. He said you'd been at work all day."

The detective leaned back in the chair, stretching her lanky frame. "Well, he needs to remember that he's not my mother, and that he shouldn't call you and tell you things like that." She could tell Maura was not smiling on the other side of the phone. Jane sighed. "I was just finishing up some paperwork from the case."

"You need to sleep, Jane. Sleep deprivation is a dangerous condition that can potentially be fatal if-"

"We've been through this one before, Maura. Sleep good. No sleep bad."

"Irritability is a symptom."

Jane pinched the bridge of her nose with her thumb and index finger.

Maura spoke again before she could respond. "Just come over here. Please."

"Okay, okay." Jane stood up, gripping the side of her desk for support while the dizziness passed. "I'm on my way."

The tail lights on the car in front of her shifted in and out of focus as Jane drove the familiar streets to Maura's, letting her body stay in autopilot while her mind drifted. By the time she shuffled through the front door, she realized she couldn't remember a single thing from the time she had left the station. The whole drive was a blank.

Maura was waiting in the kitchen when she came into the room, but she didn't even let Jane sit down on a barstool before she walked over and grabbed her arm, leading her up the stairs.

"You're staying here tonight," the doctor announced. It was not a question. And Jane wouldn't have argued anyway. Of course she was staying there. She was staying there and keeping watch.

"Okay, but it's not exactly bed time yet. So why are we going upstairs?"

"Because I've prepared the guest bedroom for you. And you're going to sleep in it. Now."

Jane shrugged her arm away from Maura's grip and turned to face her outside the door. "I'm not tired."

Maura raised her eyebrows. "Your speech is slightly slurred. Your face is pale. And I can tell from your unbalanced gait and seeming lack of normal equilibrium that you're experiencing dizziness."

"I'm fine, Maura."

But she didn't resist when the doctor re-took her arm and walked her into the bedroom. Maura laid down on the far side of bed and patted the space next to her. Jane sighed, knowing defeat when she saw it, and flopped down onto the comforter.

"Did you know the military uses sleep deprivation as a torture technique? It's been a method for centuries to psychologically destroy prisoners."

"Gee, what reassuring information," Jane muttered back, elbowing her friend gently in the arm.

Maura propped herself up on one elbow, facing the detective. "When was the first time you were really scared, Jane?"

Jane opened one eye, peering up at her friend. "Like the first time in my life?"

"Yes. Not just afraid of the dark or startled, but actually scared."

"That's a weird question." Maura didn't respond. Jane shook her head and, with effort, forced both of her eyes open. "Uh...I was 17." Her voice was low gravel. "I had gotten home like five minutes after curfew, and I walked in and saw Ma just standing in the kitchen, sobbing. At first I just froze, I just stood there, and it was like I couldn't move because I was sure if I did, she would look up and tell me something awful had happened. Tommy was dead or Frankie or Pop. And I was terrified. It was the first time I ever remember feeling like that."

Maura's forehead creased in concern. "I'm sorry, Jane. What had happened? Why was Angela upset?"

Jane snorted, closing her eyes again. "She and Pop had gotten in a huge fight because Frankie's girlfriend's mom had called and told her that she had caught the two of them doing it in one of the cars in their family's mechanic shop. Ma freaked out, obviously, and my dad just thought it was funny, so he wouldn't back her up when she wanted to ground him for life."

Maura laughed, and Jane smiled at the sound. "So your mother told you that when you asked her what was wrong?"

"Well, yeah, but I never got the chance to actually ask because when I finally figured out how to move again and rushed over to her, she just spilled the whole story at once, and I had no idea what to say except I was pissed cuz she scared the hell out of me, and I really could have done without the mental image of Frankie and Theresa in the back seat of some poor unsuspecting family's car."

"You really said that?"

Jane opened her eyes and grinned. "Yeah, I did."

Maura laughed harder, and Jane couldn't stop herself from joining in. "My ma just stared at me for a second after I said it, and then she kind of made this awful sucking noise, and she switched to laughing. So by the time Frankie ran in late for curfew two minutes later, me and my ma were both just standing in the kitchen laughing so hard we were crying, gasping out stuff like "Frankie" and "virginity" and "scarred for life."

Jane was truly laughing then, and Maura was too, the bed shaking with their staggering breaths. In some still rational part of her mind, Jane knew that she was delirious and fried. Maura would probably be telling her the overly dramatic reaction to the story was a coping mechanism, that her brain was in self-defense mode. But if laughter was some kind of neurological coping mechanism then she didn't care. Because, at least for a minute, it was working.

"I wish I had known you when you were 17," Maura finally managed, catching her breath.

Jane smirked. "Nah. I was kind of a jerk."

"Well, I like you now, don't I?"

"Hey!" she craned her neck to look over at Maura, mock offense in her voice.

The doctor grinned. "I just mean you tend to judge yourself too harshly. My guess would be you were less of a jerk than you think you were."

"Hmm." Jane laid her head back down. "Well we all know how good you are at guessing."

"You really don't think we would have been friends at 17?"

"Come on, Maura. I would be lucky to have you no matter how old we were." And Jane knew she must be tired to just admit something like that.

"Really? Would you have called me and told me that story about your mother and Frankie?"

Jane shook her head. "Nope."

A shadow of disappointment crossed Maura's face. "Oh."

"You would have been there. You would have been scared with me. And then you would have been laughing with me, too."

Maura laid back down next to Jane, her eyes trained on the ceiling. "Kind of like the past few days?"

Jane slid her hand across the mattress between them and wrapped her long fingers around Maura's. "If we were 17, I would have stayed with you today and watched movies and not gone to work. I probably even would have been relieved enough you were safe that I would have agreed to buy that swirled coffee-mint-toothpaste ice cream you like." She could feel Maura's eyes on her, but she kept her own closed. Heat rose in her cheeks. "I would have probably..." she broke off, steadying her voice before continuing. "I would have probably cried and made you let me hug you even though you don't like to be hugged when you're upset. And even though I normally don't do hugging either, I would have, if we were 17, because it would be the only way I could convince myself you were really there. It would be the only way I could even think about letting myself fall asleep again and risk having another nightmare about walking into a morgue and seeing your body on the table."

"Jane..."

The detective shook her head, just barely, but enough. "But we're not 17. And I shouldn't be selfish enough to unload all this crap on you when you're the one who went through hell."

Maura could feel the scar on Jane's palm resting against her own knuckles. And she made a decision. Slowly, deliberately, she shifted closer, filling the space between them. Her hip fit in Jane's side, her right leg pressed up against Jane's left. The detective didn't say anything, but the grip on Maura's fingers tightened, and then lifted, resting their joined hands across Maura's thigh.

The doctor could tell from Jane's deepening breaths that she was finally giving in to the sleep she so desperately needed. "I wish we were 17 tonight," Maura whispered.

Jane spoke softly as she exhaled. "17-year-olds have sleepovers, right? So be 17 with me tonight."

"Well, technically speaking we can't actually _be_ -"

"Maura, just... stay."

There was a pause. "Only if you stay, too."

And Jane was asleep before the smile left her face.


	3. Old Cash and New Shoes

**Thank you, thank you (!) for the follows, reviews, and suggestions. I went back and altered a few details in the first chapters because you guys are definitely more observant than I am, so thank you for helping me get the little things right. The next chapter should be up in a couple days... Happy reading :)**

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Jane sat in the passenger seat of the unmarked, drumming her fingers on the center console to the beat of the Johnny Cash song drifting tinnily from the old-fashioned portable radio Korsak always brought on stakeouts.

It was 11:34, and the detectives had parked their car under a broken street lamp outside the 24 hour internet cafe where a hacker was doing his work. Holiday had been able to figure out their suspect was online and track his IP address to the location, but she couldn't trace the signal to a specific computer within the network.

"You sure she's going to be able to tell when he logs off?" Korsak asked, popping another strip of beef jerky into his mouth.

"Why, you bored already?" Jane answered, raising an eyebrow.

"I'm not the one who can't stop fidgeting around. You got somewhere to be?"

Jane glanced at her watch again. 11:35. "Oh yeah, I got a real hot date planned as soon as we're done catching the guy who wants to burn my house down and kidnap my friends."

Korsak looked at her. "We're going to get him, Jane."

But she didn't make eye contact. She nodded, jaw clenched, and all that was left was the radio, filling the silence.

 _The old familiar sting_

 _try to kill it all away_

 _but I remember everything_

"What a cheery song," Jane mumbled, grabbing a piece of jerky from Korsak's container.

"What this? This is a classic."

"Classic funeral hymn, maybe."

"You're just mad because you have to stay in the car while I get to go collar this son of a bitch."

"You know," Jane shrugged, helping herself to another piece of jerky. "You could be right about that one."

"Hey," he said, and his voice was in gruff mode, "you do have to stay in the car. We don't want anything jeopardizing this arrest."

"Hey," she answered, mimicking his tone and putting her hands up in mock surrender, "I just said you were right!"

"Which automatically makes me suspicious."

She chuckled. "Yeah, yeah. Fair enough."

 _What have I become_

 _My sweetest friend_

 _Everyone I know goes away_

 _In the end_

"Seriously, Korsak, this song is ridi-"

"Sergeant Korsak?" Nina's voice interrupted on the radio. "He just logged off."

Korsak looked up at the glass paned internet cafe store front. "And there's someone coming out right now," he answered, swinging his car door open. "Stay here, Jane."

She nodded again, heart hammering in her throat. The detective had worked enough cases that she hardly dared believe she was going to get this lucky. Catching the guy making a mistake like this before he'd managed to finish whatever sick mission he was on to hurt her seemed too good to be true. And her cop gut told her if it seemed too good to be true, it almost always was. She rubbed her fingers across the palms of her hands again- the old habit had made a comeback lately without her really noticing.

 _And you could have it all_

 _My empire of dirt_

 _I will let you down_

 _I will make you hurt_

Jane ignored the song and watched as Korsak approached the guy from behind and cuffed him against the brick wall next to the storefront. The older detective turned the hacker around, holding his arm as he escorted him toward the waiting car. He looked younger than Jane had expected- his hair and beard were scraggly and thin, like he didn't spend enough time in the sun. But that wasn't what she was focused on. She bit the inside of her cheek, heart beating harder as he got closer. She searched his face for anything that seemed familiar, anything that triggered a memory or even a hope of a memory. But by the time Korsak had opened the back door and pushed him inside, she knew. She had never seen this kid before. And that meant this wasn't over.

 _If I could start again_

 _A million miles away_

 _I would keep myself_

 _I would find-_

Korsak shut the radio off.

Two hours later, after sending the kid to lock up for the night, Jane quietly turned the key and let herself into Maura's house. They hadn't slept in the same bed since the first night, and as far as anyone knew Jane had gone back to sleeping at Frankie's. She really had tried, too, for a few hours the second night, but she knew a losing battle when she saw one. Ever since then she had been on Maura's couch, and she had been leaving early enough that she hadn't been caught.

Or at least she hadn't until she walked quietly through the dark living room, unzipped her boots, and sat down on the couch- and on somebody.

Jane felt the movement underneath her and jumped up, her hand ripping her gun out of her holster faster than she could think. "Don't move," she growled, dropping her voice as low as possible to mask the adrenaline and fear that laced her tone.

A sleepy voice responded. "Okay, but you're the one breaking and entering, Detective."

Jane exhaled in relief, shakily putting her gun back and then flipping on the table lamp. "Holy shit, Maura. You scared the hell out of me."

"Language, Jane. Besides, you startled me as well. I wasn't aware you were coming over tonight." The doctor's hair was flattened to one side, and her eyes squinted against the lamp light.

Jane smiled in spite of her self. "I, uh, right. I wanted to tell you that we got the hacker, but he's working for someone higher up."

Maura pursed her lips, scrunching her knees up to make room for Jane on the couch. "You wanted to tell me that at 2 in the morning?"

Jane sighed and sat down, tipping her head back and stretching her long neck. "Not exactly."

"Jane," Maura said, placing a hand gently on her friend's knee. "I'm fine. Your mother is fine."

The detective nodded, rolling her head to the side to look at Maura. "If you're fine then why are you sleeping out here on the couch instead of in your extremely large, extremely comfortable bed?"

"I had a bad dream. I got up to make myself some tea and do some shoe shopping online, and I must have fallen asleep."

"You mean after shutting your laptop down and putting it back on the table?"

Maura sighed. "The hallway and stairs were dark, and I know it's irrational, but I couldn't..." she trailed off when she caught the look in the detective's dark eyes, simultaneously trying to finish her sentence and wonder how some types of dark could be so much more inviting, so much more enchanting than others. She cleared her throat. "I couldn't make myself move off the couch, so eventually I just laid down. Melanie told me that sometimes the best way to cope is to let your body react the way it naturally wants to."

Jane studied Maura's face as she talked, catching the hesitation in her friend's voice and the doubt in her eyes. "We're going to catch whoever it is that's doing this whole thing, Maura. We're going to figure it out."

The doctor smiled, brushing a stray curl away from Jane's face. "I know you will."

Jane shook her head, suddenly and overwhelmingly frustrated. "You shouldn't have to be afraid like this. It's not right."

"Jane, I am fine. Really. Look at me." Maura gently cupped the hard line of Jane's jaw and tilted her face closer, steeling herself for the physical reaction that always accompanied the increased proximity to the detective. Jane's eyes were somehow both vulnerable and dangerous, like a black fire smoldered behind them that wouldn't burn her unless, she wondered maybe, if Jane knew she wanted it to. Maura let her fingers brush across her best friend's cheek as she let go of her face. "I'm fine." Jane's eyes didn't stop searching her own, her forehead creased with worry. Maura smiled softly. "I'm fine."

Jane closed her eyes, close enough to Maura's face that she could feel her breath against her lips, feel her concern like it was heat and she was standing too close to the fire. She willed herself to just believe what she was hearing, believe that she really was going to catch whoever was doing this to all of them, believe that someday the fear, the fear that kept eating away at her like acid in the walls of her chest, would be gone. She opened her eyes and let herself look into Maura's for one more second, one more heartbeat of hazel and green, and then she sat back again, her head resting against the couch.

"Melanie has really been helpful, Jane. I've told her about you, and she thinks you could benefit from going to talk to her."

"Yeah, maybe." Jane smirked. "How bout shoe shopping? Was that helpful?"

Maura grinned, grabbing her laptop from the table and turning it on. "Actually, I did find these amazing Salvatore Ferragamo chic booties that are just-"

"That was sarcasm, Maura. I do not want to hear about your latest 500 dollar pair of heels."

"But this designer is world class, Jane, truly. He designed shoes for everyone from Audrey Hepburn to Sofia Loren."

Jane gasped. "He did not!"

Maura nodded enthusiastically. "He did! He and Sofia Loren actually collaborated several-" Maura cut herself off. "That was sarcasm again, right?"

Jane laughed, the raspy chuckle turning into a yawn halfway through. She looked at Maura. "You ready to get off this couch?"

The doctor nodded. "Yes."

"Good," Jane stood and turned around, pulling Maura up by the arm. "Then let's go upstairs, and you can go to bed."

"Jane?"

"Hmm?"

"The shoes were actually 995 dollars, by the way."

"Uck. Vomit."

They went into Maura's room, and Jane checked the bathroom and closet. "You're all good."

Maura nodded. "I know. I told you, the fear I was experiencing earlier was irrational."

Jane rolled her eyes and turned to leave. "Goodnight, Maura."

"You going back to the couch?"

The detective turned back, her lanky body propped against the doorframe. "No."

"Jane."

She sighed. "It's just until we catch him, okay? I can't sleep anywhere else. I tried."

"Well, now that's not true. You slept just fine with me the first night after I was released from the hospital."

Jane bit her lips, her cheeks dimpling. "Maura..." Her voice was raw gravel.

"Just for tonight?" Maura said, and she wondered if maybe she was pushing too far. Asking too much. But she kept talking. "Or maybe just until we catch him?"

Jane still hadn't moved. Because she realized, as soon as Maura had asked, that she wasn't asking for Jane's sake. She was asking for her own. And the idea of that, the idea that she was asking the person who put her in danger in the first place to be the person who who slept next to her keeping her safe- the idea that Jane was that person. She didn't know how to be needed that much. And she wasn't prepared for how much she wanted to be worthy of the need.

But it was Maura. And she was sitting there with her hair mussed and her eyes wide, like a little kid, asking. So of course. Of course Jane would say yes.

The detective flipped the light off and moved to the bed, laying down silently.

They were both quiet for so long Maura had decided Jane wasn't going to say anything, but then the low rumble of her voice broke the stillness. Like a far away freight train in the night. "What if I'm not as good as you think I am? What if I can't protect you?"

"I'm not afraid, Jane. I'm not afraid with you here."

"Why not." And she really wanted to know. She needed to hear the answer.

"Because I know that you would do absolutely everything in your power to save to me. And if it wasn't enough then nothing would have been, and it's illogical to fear the inevitable."

"Well, I would hate for you to ever do anything illogical."

"Exactly."

"Like spend 995 dollars on shoes."

Maura chortled softly, and Jane felt the brush of knuckles against her arm. "That decision was very well thought out. Those shoes are an investment."

"Yes, they are. In the podiatry industry."

"So funny. So, so funny."

Jane shrugged. "I think so."

They lapsed into silence, and when Maura spoke again it was so softly Jane nearly didn't hear it.

"Thank you for being here," she murmured.

Jane reached over and squeezed Maura's arm in response, just for a second.

But even as the detective felt herself sliding into the ambiguous blessing of sleep, she couldn't stop thinking about the lyrics on a loop in her mind. Because she would give Maura everything she had. But the minor key and the dark lines wouldn't leave her head.

 _I will let you down_

 _I will make you hurt_

What if everything she had wasn't enough.

That was her last thought before she fell asleep.

And that was her first thought, less than an hour later, when she was jolted awake by her phone buzzing on the nightstand next to her.


	4. Warranty of the Stars

**Uh.. I am so sorry for my "couple of days" turning into "couple of months!" Thank you all again for the follows and reviews, despite my delays. Hope you enjoy! More to come soon.**

* * *

Frankie's face was pale when he met Jane in lock up.

"How could anyone possibly get to him in here?" Jane asked, ripping the file from Frankie's hand more savagely than necessary.

"That's what we're trying to figure out. Nina tried to go back over the footage from tonight, and it's been wiped."

Lockup had been cleared, and the flickering florescent light buzzed constantly into the empty cell blocks. The two detectives, both wearing similar expressions of frustration and concern, stood over the body of the man Korsak had arrested just hours before. Jane squatted down. The hacker's face looked younger in death. His throat had been viciously slashed- the cut was jagged and rough, and the glass shard that Jane assumed was the murder weapon had been smashed on the ground near the victim's head.

"Why didn't Maura get this call from dispatch, too?" she finally asked, standing up.

"That was Korsak's decision. He said to run it by you first."

"Well I'd damn well rather have her here than Popov or some other idiot."

"That's kind of you, detective," Maura said, startling both of the Rizzolis.

"Jesus, Maura," Frankie said, "Don't sneak up on a group of armed cops like that."

Jane frowned at her friend, who was chuckling at Frankie's overreaction. The doctor's hair and makeup were immaculate as ever, but there was something forced about her laugh. And she was wearing flats. Jane stepped between her friend and her brother, eyes wide with sleep deprivation and concern.

"You sure you're okay to be here?" Jane asked in an undertone.

Maura smiled in what Jane could only assume was meant to be a reassuring way. It came off as more of a grimace. "This case is personal for both us, Jane. If you're here, I'm here."

Jane nodded and stepped back, unsatisfied. Her frown stayed in place.

Maura knelt by the body, examining the wound closely. "Well, this clearly wasn't made with a knife or a scalpel. The edges are too jagged for anything more sophisticated than some kind of crude tool."

The mood was heavy in the cramped space and the musty air even without the dead body, but Jane still couldn't help but be bemused by the stubbornness of the doctor's approach. "Hmm... Like a broken piece of glass, perhaps?" Jane asked, unable to stop a smirk from momentarily softening her features.

The doctor looked up with an expression Jane had seen thousands of times. "I wouldn't want to guess. But from what I'm seeing here, I certainly wouldn't rule that out."

"Well, from what I'm seeing here," Jane said, indicating to the bloody glass fragments scattered across the concrete floor, "I'm thinking we don't have anything else to rule in."

Maura sighed, straightening back to her full height. "It would be an intelligent choice as a murder weapon. You could break the glass and scatter it so finely no one would ever be able to identify it."

"Yeah, but that's not what happened here. You think the guy ran out of time?" Frankie asked.

Jane nodded. "Something interrupted him or he wouldn't have dropped the weapon here. After being so careful with everything else it doesn't make any sense."

Frankie raised his eyebrows. "So maybe we have a witness."

Jane looked at Maura. "Maybe's better than nothing."

"I'll go ask Nina about the deleted footage. She said she's trying to trace back to who did it somehow, if they accidentally left some sort of digital footprint," Frankie said.

"Yeah, keep me updated." Jane sighed, rubbing her thumb and forefinger across her eyebrows.

"Let's go, Jane," Maura said, touching the detective's arm gently. "It's the middle of the night. I'll do the autopsy in the morning."

Jane nodded, allowing Maura to lead the way out of the cell, but she glanced back at the body as they left. If she hadn't known before how far whoever was tormenting her was willing to go, she certainly knew now. And whoever it was, their resources appeared equal to the task- getting into holding, committing a murder, and wiping the footage in less than three hours seemed almost unfairly close to impossible. The detective was distracted enough by her thoughts that she let Maura drive, a decision she regretted the second they turned away from the usual route back to Beacon Hill.

"Maura? Where are we going?"

"Melanie told me that looking at the stars can be a useful tool for clearing your head. Getting everything back into perspective."

"And so we're doing that at-" Jane checked her watch, "four o'clock in the morning?"

"Yes."

Jane shook her head. "This is why I never let you drive."

But she was too awake to have fallen back asleep at that point, so she didn't keep complaining as they slowly left the lights of the city behind them. Jane watched the headlights spreading out in front of the car as they drove in silence, the houses slowly thinning as the trees thickened. Maura glanced at Jane every few minutes. The detective's eyes were trained on the pavement in front of them, her jaw set in a hard line. Even tired and sitting still, Jane was the most alive person Maura had ever known.

It's not that she hadn't seen Jane on the brink of death. She had. She had watched as a bullet tore through her abdomen, and she had felt her best friend's blood run thick and hot through her fingers. She had seen her jump off a bridge into the churning, black water too many feet below, and she had begged a God she had never believed in to give her the strength to breath the life back into sodden lungs through lips that had already turned blue. And Jane had always come back to her. Whatever twist of luck or fate that had brought the detective into her life had not yet run its warranty. But for some reason, after tonight, she couldn't shake the feeling that sometimes, maybe, even Jane Rizzoli ended up in a fight she couldn't win. And that was a feeling Maura couldn't bear. So instead, she drove until she found the stars.

Forty minutes outside the city, Maura pulled off the road into a clearing and tipped her seat back to look out the sun roof and into the sky. Jane, tempted as she was to make a comment about whether or not it really counted as stargazing if you did it from inside the car, stayed silent and followed Maura's lead.

"Did you know a lot of the light that we can see from the stars is already extinguished?" Maura asked, falling back on science when emotion once again failed her.

"What a cheerful perspective."

"The light from stars that collapsed centuries ago takes so long to get here that by the time it reaches the earth, nothing else is left. It's the closest thing reality has to ghosts."

"Cheerful and not at all creepy."

But Jane looked up anyway. The stars glittered across the milky blackness, hundreds of thousands of them, and she was surprised- as she always was when she left the city- at how many more there were than she ever remembered.

"How can you tell the difference between the ones that are still there and the ones that have burned out?" the detective asked.

Maura looked at her, looked at the light reflecting from her dark eyes, and then had to look away. "It's impossible to determine with the naked eye."

Jane could hear the fear in Maura's tone, and it made her mouth go dry. "Maura, this guy that's after me, or girl, whoever, they're really good."

The doctor resolutely continued staring into the sky. "So are you."

"They got to the hacker two hours after we had him in lockup, and they erased the footage. That's... They might be better than me."

Maura looked at her friend once again, this time forcing herself to keep looking, even though some small part of her couldn't help but be terrified that the light she saw there, Jane's light, could potentially be as much of a ghost as the stars. These were the thoughts she couldn't ever get into perspective. These were the fears that could not be made relative by the enormity of any universe.

"Jane." Maura's voice was a whisper.

The detective bit her bottom lip. "If something ends up happening to me... you know. If this guy gets what he wants, in the end, I just-" she ran her fingers through her hair, tangling it further. "Shit, I am bad at this. I don't even know what I'm trying to say."

Maura choked out a half laugh. But when she spoke her voice was soft and serious. "Jane," she said, and she waited until the detective's dark eyes caught her own before she continued. "You are the stars to me. You're there to help me find where I'm going, and to protect me in the dark, and... to remind me how beautiful this world can be. And I... It scared me tonight, when I woke up and you were gone, so I called Korsak."

Jane watched the doctor, adamantly fighting the heat rising in the back of her throat and prickling in her eyes. "I wondered how you got there so fast."

"He told me what happened, and he told me he could call Popov, but I wanted to go."

Jane let out a long breath, and when she spoke her voice was a rasp. "It scared me tonight, too. Seeing that they could get in to holding like that and take out a suspect... Maura, I don't know if I can stop this guy. I don't even know if I can find him."

Maura reached across the seat and took Jane's hand, squeezing it softly and then letting go. Jane held on.

"If you were one of these ghost stars and you knew that you only had a while longer before no one could see your light anymore, what would you do?" Jane knew herself well enough to know that she must be more scared than she realized if she was willing to ask that question. But she still wouldn't just say the words out loud. _I think I'm going to lose, Maura. I think I'm going to die._

"Well, stars aren't cognizant of their own existence or lack thereof."

Jane chuckled, a feeling of overwhelming protectiveness toward her friend expanding in her chest almost faster than she could bear. _What if I can't protect you? What if I can't even protect you from myself? What if I can't stop myself from telling you all the truth I have to tell?_ "At least I'm not the only one who's bad at these types of conversations."

Maura smiled, feeling the muscles around her eyes tighten in her body's natural attempt to prevent tears. A morning dove cooed softly in the distance, and a thin veil of clouds drifted across the sky. The doctor looked into Jane's eyes and saw flashes of the past. Limp hands. Cold lips. She didn't dare try and see flashes of the future. Not if it looked different than what she sometimes let herself hope for. Lips that were no longer cold. Hands that gripped back. "If I were in that position, I would try and be more like you, Jane. I would try and make everyone around me feel more safe. More loved."

Jane shifted, turning as much toward Maura as the seat of the car would allow. Her heart was beating too quickly- she was too tired. She was too afraid. "You said I was like the stars to you? Maura, you... You've been like the sky to me. You're the only place I can be," she broke off, her voice like the slow burn of a campfire. "The only place I ever want to be."

Maura looked at her, the detective hardly believing the words coming out of her own mouth as she spoke. She wondered what Maura thought she meant. She wondered what she actually meant, in that moment. But Maura's hand once again squeeze her own and she watched as the doctor's hazel eyes searched her brown ones.

Whatever this was, whatever this meant, it was different than before. She had almost lost Maura, and she was, some part of her mind reminded her, currently the target of a suspect who had outsmarted her at every turn so far.

But in that moment, as the sun began to break softly across the horizon, and the stars slowly faded into the morning sky, she was just Jane Rizzoli. And she was looking at Maura Isles, whose loosely curled hair splayed across the headrest and caught the first light of the day. And suddenly, for the first time since her apartment had burned down months ago, maybe even for the first time in years, she felt like she was home again.


	5. All Good Things

"Whoever it is, they're escalating," Korsak said, leaning back in his chair.

Nina nodded. "Yes. When I was dealing with the hacker, I couldn't get anything. That guy was good, and whoever hired him knew he was good."

Jane propped herself up against a desk and studied the computer screens in front of her. "They were good enough to know they needed to hire a hacker, which means that maybe they aren't that great at the computer stuff themselves." She glanced at Korsak. "That's something."

Nina smiled, raising her eyebrows. "That's more than something. I ran a check first thing this morning, thinking the same thing you are. Whoever erased the footage didn't do it using TOR, so I was able to trace the IP address of the last computer to access the system much more quickly, and it led me to an internet cafe in Allston."

"Allston? I read that's becoming a centennial hub, specifically for immigrant communities."

Jane turned at the sound of Maura's voice, and she found her friend standing in the doorway, a file in her hand.

"Uh, I think you mean millennial, Maura."

The doctor pursed her lips. "Either way, the young adult population is higher in that area than the rest of Boston by a statistically significant amount."

Maura had driven them home the night before, arriving at her house in time to catch three hours of sleep before returning to the precinct. They didn't talk about Jane staying again- they hadn't had to because for once Jane had been too tired to argue. When the detective woke up, Maura had already dressed in couture and made the coffee. But Jane couldn't think about the ways their routine had changed lately, the way her fears bit into her in a new way, not if she wanted to work. And work was the priority.

"Do you think it's possible we're dealing with a kid here?" Korsak asked, the doubt evident in his tone. "Seems more like a career criminal to me."

"A career criminal with an inside knowledge of the precinct," Nina added, pulling up video footage on the main screen. "Only the cameras in the holding cells had been wiped. Everything else is still there, probably because whoever was doing this was in a rush. But I've been through it six or seven times already, and this is the only guy in the building who I couldn't identify." Nina paused the footage on a man leaving from the side door. A baseball cap obscured his face, but the logo on his shirt was clear.

"That guy's wearing a BPD T-shirt," Korsak said, "the kind they give us in the softball tournaments. He was probably just working late."

Nina nodded. "That's what I thought too, at first. Except I played in the softball tournament last year, and that's not our shirt. It's not even homicide. So, I looked it up, and it's the drug squad's uniform from the 2010 season."

"The 2010 season?" Jane asked, squinting harder at the blurred image. "Who was even here back then?"

"I ran a list of names, and I came up with twelve detectives. One died, three have retired, one transferred to Framingham, one's on vacation this week, and one has been out for the past few months for chemo treatments. Of the five that are left, two were out on a call last night at this time according to the dispatch logs."

Jane raised her eyebrows. "Korsak, we better stay on our toes or the boss is going to realize Nina can do all our jobs for us."

Korsak chuckled. "Maybe I underestimated these kids after all."

"Can you send us the three names left on the list?" Jane asked.

Nina nodded. "Already in your inbox, Detective."

"I've got something for you too, Jane," Maura chimed in. "Our hacker tested positive for cocaine."

"Cocaine?" Jane ran her hands through her hair, succeeding only in tangling it further. "Okay, so we've got a junkie hacker being controlled by a guy using a computer in Allston."

"And we've got three possible suspects who belong to this department," Korsak added.

"There's no good connection there, not unless I really pissed off one of the guys in the drug squad. Do any of them live in Allston?"

Nina shook her head. "I checked that as soon as I got the names. No hits."

Jane sighed, running through alternatives in her head. None of it was coming together. Without a motive, everything stayed circumstantial.

"Maura, was there any blood on the glass or any DNA beneath the hacker's fingernails? Anything?"

"No," Maura answered, a hint of frustration betrayed in her voice, "whoever did this was careful. But we have prints and DNA, so we should be able to ID him now."

Nina nodded. "I'll run it through the system and let you guys know when I have something."

Jane flopped onto the couch in Maura's office three hours later, her long fingers pinching the bridge of her nose. "We checked the last three names on that list of detectives. They're all clean."

Maura frowned from behind her desk. "Then who was wearing that shirt?"

Jane shook her head. "Maybe he bought it in a garage sale or a thrift shop or he found it in the precinct and put it on to blend in. Maybe the guy in the video isn't even the guy we're looking for, I don't know."

The detective opened her eyes and forced herself to sit up, looking at the office fully for the first time since Maura had been found. New information just seemed to offer more dead ends, and Jane took a deep breath, willing the roar of panic and outrage rising in her chest to settle back to its manageable place. The office wasn't empty. The doctor once again sat among the carefully tended to plants and the African tribal masks. But Jane found the wave, once it came, was impossible to stop. She hated herself for the tears that stung at the corner of her eyes. She had almost lost Maura, and now, weeks later, she still felt like she was losing her mind.

"Jane," Maura's voice softened, and she stood, moving to the chair nearest the couch. "The evidence will lead us to him. He's making mistakes."

"He's getting desperate," Jane answered, her voice practically a growl. She sprung from the couch and started pacing, suddenly unable to sit still. "He's more dangerous if he's desperate, and we still don't have any idea who he is or why he's doing this. The truth is he could be standing outside on the street next time you open a door, and I wouldn't be able to do anything to stop him from-"

The detective cut herself off, turning abruptly back toward Maura. "I didn't mean that. Shit. I feel like I'm going crazy."

"I've been thinking about it, and I wonder if you might be struggling to process the trauma this situation has caused because you don't have closure. Unprocessed trauma can cause PTSD."

Jane frowned at Maura, who looked back, concerned, from her chair. All of her energy seemed to evaporate as quickly as it had come, and she sunk back onto the couch.

"You know, I think any trauma can cause PTSD. And you do have closure?"

"No, but I have acceptance," Maura frowned. "I'm working on acceptance. Melanie's been very helpful in that regard."

"Uck, Melanie. What situation exactly have you accepted?"

"The fear of the unknown. It apparently stemmed from a deeper place than I initially believed, but I'm resolving it now."

Jane forced herself not to roll her eyes. "Oh really? You told me last night that you were scared when where I went was 'unknown.'"

"A situation that I remedied by discovering where you were," Maura responded, bemused. "Part of acceptance is understanding that some fear is natural."

"Well, I'd rather have closure than acceptance."

Maura chuckled. "I don't think it works that way."

Jane smiled grimly. "Tell Melanie that it should."

"I'll mention it to her."

"So how is one to go about getting this acceptance?"

Maura shrugged, which Jane hadn't realized was possible to do in such a prep school ladylike way until she had met Maura. "It differs depending on the person. It helps to begin by identifying your fears."

Jane sighed and looked around the office before letting her eyes settle on the woman sitting across from her. She was real, breathing. Jane looked away. "Last time I was in this office I thought you were dead," Jane said, her voice soft and low. "I knew I wasn't supposed to think like that. I tell victim's families not to assume the worst, but I thought you were dead, Maura. And I- hope just felt..." Jane trailed off, without ability to articulate whatever came next.

"Illogical." Maura finished, her green eyes searching Jane's dark ones.

Jane tilted her head. "Not the word I would have used," she answered. "But yeah." Her jaw hurt from clenching it so tightly.

"I'm familiar with that," Maura said, her quiet tone matching Jane's. "This room triggered the feeling for you, but for me, for a long time, it was the front steps of BPD. I couldn't come to work without thinking about you lying there. I thought you were going to die that day. I went through the back door for years after that."

"I-" Jane cut herself off and stood up abruptly, startling Maura. "Years, Maura, that happened in 2011. Nina said one of the detectives from back then was dead- it's Bobby Marino. He was on that drug squad, and he played in the softball game that year. He would have had one of those shirts."

Maura was standing, too, her lips pressed together in concern. "Jane, Bobby is dead. It couldn't have been him doing this to you."

But the detective was already moving. "He had a 16-year-old son. And I killed that kid's father."

Comprehension lit Maura's eyes. "But- you. That shooting was more than justified. You almost died."

"He's not going to care about that, Maura," Jane said, heading toward the elevator with Maura following in her wake. "To him I'm just the person that took his dad away."

Jane and Maura entered the squad room just as Nina rushed in from the tech center.

"The hacker's name was Julius Thomas," Nina announced. "I ran his criminal history, and I found out he was in juvie from 2011-2013 for a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act."

Jane nodded. "Good. Korsak, do you remember Bobby Marino's son's name?"

"Sure, Victor. He was a good kid. Why do you ask?"

Jane didn't answer, typing the name into her computer as quickly as she could.

"2011-2014 you said?" she asked, glancing up at Nina.

"Right."

"Korsak, Victor Marino has a record. He got put in juvie twice between 2012 and 2015. Both times for arson. And it's got his current address in Allston."

"I had no idea about the arson," Korsak answered, shaking his head. "Bobby must have really done a number on him. But you really think he's coming after you? That he kidnapped Maura?"

Jane stood up again. "Nina can you check and see whether Victor and Julius crossed paths at all in juvie?"

"Of course. I'll be right back," Nina agreed.

"Okay," Jane said, pacing between her desk and Maura, who was still standing near the doorway. "Victor's pissed at me because of what happened to Bobby. He has a history of arson. He would have been familiar with the layout of the precinct. He lives in the same neighborhood as our hacker's handler. He and the hacker were in juvie at the same time, in the same place. And someone was leaving our precinct last night in a shirt that only Bobby and 11 other guys had. And we already know it's not those other guys. What's the likelihood of all that being a coincidence?"

"At this point it seems improbable," Maura admitted.

Nina rushed back into the room, her face pale. "Jane, Victor and Julius lived in the same section for six months. They were both cited for trying to smuggle cocaine into the detention facility."

"Okay, we got him," Korsak announced, standing up. "That's more than enough for a warrant."

"Let's go," Jane whipped her jacket from the back of her chair and followed Korsak toward the squad room doors.

"Jane," Maura wrapped her fingers around Jane's arm as she passed, grasping tightly around the detective's wrist. "Be careful."

Jane grinned, her smile in full force for seemingly the first time since her apartment burned down. "Maura, we got him," she answered, placing her hand over the doctor's. "No way I'm letting anything happen to me before we finally take this son of a bitch down."

"Closure?" Maura answered, smiling back, her eyes suddenly full.

Jane quickly wiped a tear from Maura's cheek, and then backed away. She slipped her jacket on and pointed back at the doctor. "Closure!"

The sun was bright as Jane pushed hurriedly through the front doors of BPD and jogged down the steps toward Korsak's waiting unmarked.

"Detective," a voice called.

She turned mid-stride, squinting against the light. She hadn't seen Victor Marino in years, but, as she heard the gunshots, she realized he had his father's eyes.

* * *

Author's Note:

So, obviously there's no excuse for how long this has taken, but the next one is the last one, and it's already written and coming tomorrow. Promise. If you're still reading this, I really can't thank you enough.


	6. Blood and Promises

Jane scrambled for her gun, even as the two bullets struck her from what was nearly point blank range. She felt the unmistakable burn of hot lead penetrating flesh as the first tore through her shoulder. But she wasn't afraid until the second buried itself in abdomen, just below her ribcage. So close to where she had shot herself all those years before.

Marino just stood there after he fired, hand shaking, lips slightly parted. The detective couldn't understand why her own hands, usually so well trained, had moved away from her holster seemingly of their own accord, grasping at the growing crimson stains widening across her grey t-shirt. Shouting and more gunshots erupted around her, but the voices were warbled, like her world had tipped under water. The sun seemed brighter suddenly, burning hot against her face. But then the first wave of true pain hit, and she knew the force of it would have knocked her over if she wasn't already on the ground. She didn't remember falling.

The detective craned her neck, trying to twist away from the sun, away from the pain, and suddenly an overpriced pair of heels filled her vision.

"Maura," Jane said, reaching out toward the shoes with a bloodied hand, surprised to hear her voice had drained to a whisper.

Pale fingers closed around Jane's shaking ones. "Jane," Maura said, her tone defaulting to clinical out of desperation. "Oh my God, Jane."

Jane forced herself to tip her head, so much heavier than normal, up as far as she could. Maura's eyes danced from Jane's down to her broken body and back again. The doctor's face was pale and taught, like she was about to cry or scream or both. Jane instinctively reached up toward her, but the movement shot a ripple of pain down her arm and through her side like an electric current. She gasped, struggling for breath, and the sound seemed to snap Maura out of her shock.

"Jane," she repeated, her voice firm and low, "don't try and move. You don't want to exacerbate your injuries."

Jane's answering chuckle turned into a cough that brought the iron taste of blood to the back of her throat. "I think my injuries are already pretty exacerbated."

Maura shook her head, releasing Jane's hand to put pressure on the two entry wounds. "No. You're going to be fine," Maura said, her voice breaking on the last word. "Please, Jane. Look at me."

Dark eyes met green, and Jane looked at Maura like she had never let herself before. Like she was the only thing left that mattered. And maybe it was just the blood loss, but the detective saw something she hadn't noticed before- that Maura was looking at her the same way. And maybe Maura had been looking at her like that the whole time. She searched the doctor's face as her eyelids grew heavier, trying not to blink because she didn't want to miss one second, not if minutes were all she had left. Maura broke eye contact when another officer rushed over, but Jane didn't look away. Maura's hands busied themselves across Jane's body, applying pressure and checking blood pressure and brushing curls back. Jane watched the sunlight filter through the golden brown hair cascading down toward her, like a net of protection draped too late. She watched Maura yelling to the sudden swarm of people surrounding them, issuing directions and calling for an ambulance.

"Please," Maura yelled into the crowd, not addressing anyone in particular. "Please, she needs help now. Please"

Jane's brow furrowed, and she bit her lip against the pain that pulsed through her body. "Hey," she said, her voice cracking and gravelled. "It's okay."

"No," Maura answered, her voice low and desperate and filled with the pain that Jane felt coursing through her. "You are not one of those stars whose light has already gone out. You're too bright for that. Do you hear me? You're still here."

Jane tried to nod as her vision blurred and darkened. The concrete steps, once hot beneath her, were growing colder. Even the sun seemed to have lost its scorching heat. The pain came in rhythm with her heartbeat, the thready thrumming beating the life into her and out of her all at once. But Maura was there, and she was whole. Jane felt a smile work into the corners of her mouth as she traced the doctor's face again with her eyes, absorbing the familiar details over and over, knowing that if this face was the last face she would ever see, it would have been enough.

"Maura," Jane breathed, too softly to be heard above the rising sound of sirens.

Maura moved her hand from Jane's shoulder and placed it against the detective's face, her thumb gently gliding across the high plane of Jane's cheek bone, her fingers weaving into Jane's hair and gripping, holding on like she was falling. "Please, Jane. You are my light. You always have been."

That was the last thing the detective heard before her world went dark.

Dr. Maura Isles had never believed in anything but science before she met Jane Rizzoli. Science had saved her as a child, when she floundered with fitting in and making friends. The periodic table and the structure of a cell had been there for her when no one else was. Science was constant, even in its unpredictability, and it suited her. But Maura had always wanted to help people as well. As she grew older and acquired more varying and complex knowledge, she began to see that she could channel it to ease the pain of others. She could use science to help people the way it had helped her.

The only true flaw in her plan, of course, was that she was not good at connecting with people, and people did not seem to want to be helped by someone who made them uncomfortable. This was unfortunately not a lesson that she could study and master in a classroom, and for most of her life, the ease of human interaction evaded her. Maura knew she was different. She was too smart not to understand exactly how different she was. But understanding something and knowing how to change it are two different things, and Maura could not unravel the intricacies of the latter. Helping the dead, therefore, became her way of helping the living. The work satisfied her, and it occasionally even challenged her. It also allowed her to interact with law enforcement, people who, she quickly realized, cared less about her social awkwardness than her efficient results. She helped them solve their cases, and they rewarded her by accepting her- albeit somewhat tepidly- into their circle. Maura believed it had was enough for her, that her life was destined- although she did not believe in such mystical philosophies- to be spent telling the last stories of the dead and doing so in high fashion. But then she met Detective Jane Rizzoli.

Maura thought, before Jane, that she was afraid of people. She had been laughed at, teased, and taunted in varying degrees throughout her life. So, although, she knew that being afraid of people was for the most part irrational, it also provided her some level of protection. And it wasn't that Jane hadn't scared her- in fact, in some ways Jane terrified her more than anyone had Maura had ever met. It was just, for the first time in her life, the rush had been exciting instead of scary. It had been exhilarating and liberating. Jane, with her long, wild curls and her infectious grin and her mischievously glinting eyes, had allowed Maura to do something she had long ago written off as nearly impossible for someone of her aptitude. She had allowed Maura to connect. Jane teased Maura about her aversion to beer. Jane had laughed with her about her overpriced shoes, and her inability to lie, and her elementary grasp of sarcasm. The detective had showed up one night, alone and cocky and afraid, and in the ways that mattered, she had stayed for good.

Maura had fallen in love with Jane Rizzoli fully accepting her love may well go unrequited because, in a statistically verifiable trend, her love generally went unrequited. But there had been moments when Maura wondered. She wondered over lingering glances in their booth at the Dirty Robber. She had wondered on late night cases, with Jane curled up on the couch and Maura nearly leaning into her side. She had wondered when she woke up in a hospital room, several weeks earlier, and found the detective watching her in a way she hadn't before. Jane's gaze had lingered on Maura's eyes, her hair, her lips. She slept in Maura's bed. She talked about being 17 again.

But Maura was not wondering about love now. No, love was not going to save anyone, not that day. Not on these too familiar steps. Now, Maura was back to science.

Maura pressed her hand more firmly against the wound in Jane's abdomen, desperately trying to staunch the seemingly endless blood flooding out of her body and through Maura's fingers. The detective had lost consciousness seconds before, and as Maura had watched Jane's dark eyes finally fall shut, she felt something shutting inside herself as well. Suddenly there were more hands joining hers. The ambulance had finally, finally, arrived. But science, with a sudden vindictiveness, perhaps, for playing second chair to love all these years, forcefully reminded Maura that the damage had already been done. The blood had been lost. The bullets had carved their deadly path through far too vulnerable terrain. Maura had never thought of Jane as fragile, and the lanky detective with the raspy voice wouldn't have stood for such a description anyway. She would have snorted and taken a pull from her beer. But she was fragile, Maura realized, science urging her thoughts along. She was, in spite of being the strongest person Maura had ever known, just as breakable as anyone else. It struck with astounding force, for a fact that Maura had already of course rationally understood, that Maura could lose Jane. Maura could lose Jane, her seemingly unstoppable force of nature, to a couple of pieces of metal each less than half an inch wide.

The EMTs hoisted the detective's stretcher up and carried it away toward the waiting ambulance. Maura was left kneeling, staring at blood stained concrete steps. That blood, just minutes before, had been inside of the person she loved most in the world. It had been circulating through veins and arteries, oxygenating Jane's alert and intelligent brain. Pumping through Jane's incredibly compassionate, maddeningly complex heart. And now it was here, pooling in the sun, once again staining the steps of BPD.

Maura vomited. She thought about Jane's vigil at her hospital bedside weeks before. Then she pushed science back into its rightful position in second chair, and she climbed into the ambulance with the woman she loved.

The sterilized smell of the hospital room was tempered by something far more fresh and familiar. Jane recognized the subtle scent of Maura's perfume before she fully woke up. So she thought she was prepared to see the doctor, there, sitting by her bedside. But then the detective opened her eyes, she realized she had been wrong.

Maura was there, her chair pulled close enough to hold Jane's hand. Her head was down, staring at the fingers she was gently tracing with her own. Her hair was disheveled, and- Jane blinked- there seemed to be traces of blood still there, stuck in the golden strands. In fact, aside from the doctor's hands, which had been washed clean, Jane realized Maura was very much still covered in Jane's blood. Jane's heart seemed to travel somewhere near the back of her throat, and she blinked again to try and clear the tears from her eyes. This time Maura noticed the movement.

"Jane?" Maura asked, tentatively, like she had been silently preparing to never hear an answer to her call again.

Jane smiled at the sound, affection flooding through her drug fogged and pain addled body. "How long was I out?"

Maura visibly sagged with relief, tears filling her eyes as tension drained from her shoulders. Her grip on Jane's hand strengthened. "About 9 hours. They rushed you into surgery. Your mom and Frankie are in the cafeteria right now, but they should be back any minute."

Jane nodded, squeezing the fingers resting against her palm. "You stayed with me the whole time?"

Maura attempted a watery smile. "I couldn't leave you. You didn't leave me."

"I actually went to the gym for an hour while you were unconscious," the detective admitted, the hint of playfulness returning to her tone. "But only because Korsak made me."

"Well, I was unconscious for far longer than you. It's only logical."

Jane chuckled, feeling pressure in her chest where she knew medication was numbing the pain. "Yes, that's what I was feeling most that day. Logical."

Maura opened her mouth to answer, but she paused, swallowing hard instead. She shook her head, just the tiniest bit, and Jane linked their fingers together.

"Hey," the detective said. "I'm okay. It's over now. We made it."

Maura nodded. "I'll go let the doctor know you're awake."

"Wait, Maura," Jane called her back. "Are you okay?"

Maura nodded, still fighting her emotions. "I thought... Jane, for a minute, I really thought I might lose you. I don't know what I would do if that happened."

The detective shifted slightly, tilting her head to be closer to Maura. "When you were missing, I-" Jane cut herself off, not trusting her voice to take her further down that road. "Well, I was worried we wouldn't find you. And once we did, I thanked Frost for helping us. I went to the gym that morning when you were in the hospital, and I sat there, and I just... It's like everything hit me at once. I thought you were dying, and all I wanted was to get you back. And then I thought I was dying, and all I wanted was you."

Jane had not planned on telling her then. Not in the hospital, not like that. But Maura was sitting there, covered in her blood. She was sitting there, and Jane needed her to know. She needed her. And anything less than the truth felt like a lie.

Maura blinked, trying to interpret the words through her haze of exhaustion and shock. "You have me, Jane," she answered, finally, still unsure. "You've always had me."

Jane swallowed, fighting to stay awake, to stay lucid, to make sure she was being clear. "You promise?"

Maura leaned forward, touching her forehead against Jane's, each of them breathing in their mingled air. "I promise."

And then Jane closed the distance between them, tipping her chin up and brushing their lips together. It was a soft kiss, almost chaste, like it had happened a hundred times out of habit before. Jane felt Maura's lips part in surprise against her own, and then she kissed her back, gentle and firm and more like coming home than anything else.

The doctor pulled away first, her eyes searching Jane's, voicelessly checking and double checking, making sure it was okay. It was wanted. She was wanted.

"I love you," Jane said, smiling tiredly. "Just so you know."

Maura laughed and shook her head, relieved and surprised and more and less afraid than she had ever been in her life. She kissed Jane again, lightly. "You promise?"

The detective nodded, closing her eyes again. "I promise."

"I'm going to go get the doctor now," Maura said, fully rising from her chair for the first time since she had sat down in it, hours before.

"Okay," Jane murmured, already falling back into sleep. "I'll be here when you get back."

* * *

Well guys, thank you for all the follows and the kind comments. And thanks for sticking around with this unreliable timing narrator until the end! It's possible I might do an epilogue in the distant future, just detailing some of their life together, but for now, this is it :)


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